#malstaf

[ilbar]

Lawrence Malstaf, Conversations, 2012

[low-country]

Lawrence Malstaf - Shrink (2010)

DD: What do you enjoy about exhibiting the human animal as a living artwork? Malstaff: The reasons I do the things I do are quite abstract. Obviously, this work has a certain energy to it but it’s only when the visitor comes in to see it that it gets a narrative. Chiefly, it’s about adaptation, and how that works in what you called the human animal. I am fascinated by the fact that our human nature is always about adapting to new environments, but also that somewhere along the line we started to adapt the environment itself rather than ourselves, with the industrial age and so on. Maybe in a couple of thousand years we will completely lose this ability for adaptation, and we will actually physically make something if we feel the need to ‘adapt’ rather than let nature simply change us.

(Dazed Digital)

[low-country]

Lawrence Malstaf - Nemo Observatorium (2002)

Styrofoam beads are blown around in a big transparent PVC cylinder by five strong fans. Visitors can take place on the armchair in the middle of the whirlpool or observe from the outside one at a time. On the chair, in the eye of the storm it is calm and safe. Spectacular at first sight, this installation turns out to mesmerise like a kind of meditation machine. One can follow the seemingly cyclic patterns, focus on the different layers of 3D pixels or listen to its waterfall sound. One could call it a training device, challenging the visitor to stay centred and find peace in a fast changing environment. After a while the space seems to expand and one’s sense of time deludes.